XXViil PSALMS OF TH& SISTERS

4 Cuius animtun gementem
Contt'i&ictni&n, el clolentem
Pertwnsivit

to whom life in the Order eanie chiefly as comfort and
support in mortal anguish.

The ' Light of Asia ' has familiarised the West with the
episode, narrated in our Commentary, of KiaCigotarai — iba
Frail Grotanaid1 — who, cheating her distracted niiad, .sought
medicine for the little child she bore about, dead, on her
hip. The poem ascribed to her is one of the most striking
of the series. Released from all her soivmvs by insight
gained through communion in the Order * \yith noble souls/
and chiefly through the object-lesson given her by the
noblest of them all; she strikes in her verses a broader
note. Into the echoes of her own grief she weaves the
chords of the sufferings of her sex? and more especially iiho
terrible experiences of her great colleague the Sister Pata-
cara,2 as if to illustrate the teaching of him who had
comforted her, namely, that * there hath no trouble over-
taken you save such as is common to men,*

The Gotamid's swift acceptance of this stoic cousolution
may call up in contrast how a "Western poet, with insight
into human nature, spurn?* such comfort for the v/ounded
heart while its anguish is yet raw :

* And comttton was tlie commonplace,
And vacant ck\jff wM 'Meant' for grain..
That loss in common would nof wutke
My owti less bitter, rather wort?;
Too coMiuciti .' Nevdr tnc-rnirtg wore-
To evti'ii'i'te,t/, liit some heart did brei.7fm'z

But it should not be forgotten that KisngotaiuiT, distraught
though she was, is represented us being, in her spiritual
evolution, at the very threshold of the Dawn, far nearer
to saintship than the young Tennyson, mourning his
friend, claimed to be. It is because he * saw the promise

1 Ps. Ixiii. I.e., physically frail or loan.

3 Pronounce e like eh in l church/ - In ttfctHoriaui, vi.